Continuing our journey through early Famicom and NES titles, we approach a series of cold, snowy mountains that we need to ascend. While platformers for the first couple of years of the Famicom were of the single-screen variety, this one is different. Instead, it’s vertically oriented where the player starts at the bottom of the screen and jumps up multiple floors to the top of a mountain. The game is Ice Climber. Probably due to it two-player mode, it’s often mistakenly referred to as Ice Climbers.
In addition to the two-player mode that’s selectable from the title screen, a more surprising option is the ability to choose one’s starting mountain, or stage, before playing. That was a rare feature around the time of this game’s release.
Gameplay
At first glance, my initial impressions were good, with cute graphics for the main characters and how the enemies reacted to attacks. For controls, you press the B button to whack foes with a mallet, and the A button to jump. The latter reminded me of the original Mario Bros. (Review) in how your character’s arc is almost entirely straight up, and only a little to the right or left at the top. This was extremely difficult for me to get the hang up, but the way I thought of it was to press the jump button to go up, and then about halfway through the leap, press left or right to move a little in either direction. Running before leaping had an impact on how much you move in the air, but not much compared to Platformers that would be released a few years later. Sadly, I never really got used to it. Moreover, it’s one of the few games where seeing a two-square gap in the floor would cause me to have a significant sense of dread! I’d question myself, “Would I be able to get to the other side safely?” That was often debatable!
Another major gameplay mechanic was smashing blocks that were above you to reach the higher floors of the mountain. Since each section was often made up of ice, when you hit the ceiling it often broke up. The purpose was to make an opening so you could jump up to the next section and continue your journey. After completing eight floors, you would reach a bonus stage where you picked up fruit for extra points and try and hang on to the condor flying around at the top. If you grabbed on to him in the allotted time you earned even more points!
As I played, I couldn’t help but notice how challenging it was to control my character, especially in the air. Of course, with a game titled, “Ice Climber,” it was going to have a lot of slippery areas to run and jump around in. As such, I wouldn’t knock the game because of that. What made me angry was how the characters fell through platforms even while touching them! Additionally, despite there not being a timer for the first eight floors of the mountains, sometimes the screen would still scroll upward after trying to reach the next level for the umpteenth time. Because of the game’s seemingly specific expectations of how it wanted you to jump, land, and ascend the mountains, I came to view Ice Climber as an early Puzzle Platformer.
Graphics
Concerning the visuals, graphics are typical for the time period. The majority of the background is black, with most of the rest of the screen being the various floors of the mountain and the sprites for yourself and the enemies. The big difference about all this was the how the screen scrolled upward. This didn’t happen all the time, but rather after I made several attempts to reach a higher floor, or once I made it up the majority of the screen.
As I shared near the beginning of this review, the character designs were quite cute. How everyone moved around or reacted to actions was something my kids and I enjoyed a good deal. I actually viewed this part as the game’s best aspect. Unfortunately, such a pleasant exterior betrays the game’s incredible difficulty.
Music and Sound Effects
I’ll begin here with the music. While the main tune that played during regular gameplay was kind of charming, I couldn’t get past its short length and repetitiveness. I also thought it was a bit too basic. It also didn’t help that it reminded me of the frustrating design of the game. I found the music to be abrasive, as I noticed how much time I was wasting watching little clouds fly by me repeatedly.
At least the sound effects were enjoyable. I liked the sound the game made when you hit an enemy with a mallet or knocked a bird out of the sky. Such actions were satisfying and fun when I was able to do them successfully.
More Gameplay and Two-player Mode
I mentioned that caveat at the end of the last section because there was a significant delay when trying to hit enemies. One can’t just stand there and keep swinging your mallet waiting for them to get smacked. If you time your button presses wrong, you can get hit in mid swing. This was surprising, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be a serious problem if I was better at the game. I only mention it because I lost a life that way multiple times.
What really frustrated me were the game’s jumping mechanics and the stage designs of the mountains. In the case of the latter, the first few ease you into the game. However, before too long, many of them contain clouds of varying lengths floating across the screen. These were so you could jump on them, and then jump again to smash the ceiling before falling down. When I was able to do this effectively, I could make it to the next floor at a pretty good clip. Unfortunately, what normally happened was that I’d get onto the cloud, knock away a piece or two of the ceiling, and fall down to the previous floor. I’d then wait for it to come again to make another attempt. This only took a few seconds, but after doing these actions 5+ times with no progress, I couldn’t help but feel like the game was work. Additionally, the yeti above me would come with his ice to fill the whole that I just made. Finally, if you take a really long time, there’s a decent chance that the screen will scroll up before you’re ready. Thereby encouraging the loss of another life. These two combined situations, with the clouds and the screen auto scrolling, contributed toward me growing to hate the game. The conveyer belt floors didn’t help much either. Which is a shame, because Ice Climber can be fun!
My kids liked playing the first few mountains, and took great joy in knocking the other player off ledges, or just pushing each other around for no reason at all. In that regard, the game could be a lot of fun, in a playful sort of way. Seeing them have so much fun was endearing to watch. With that in mind, it’s also worth pointing out that each climber has his or her own physical space. You can’t walk through the other player. Instead, you push them away or knock them off the ledge if you get to close to them. This means having two people stand on one cloud is quite risky, and I expect that the two-player mode would be extremely difficult to complete.
While preparing to do this review, at a few points I used the game’s stage select option to try some of the harder mountains. I’m glad that the ability to change mountains at will was there, but doing so solidified my opinion of the game that it wasn’t for me. I didn’t like it much at all.
Final Thoughts
Again, Ice Climber felt too much like work. Sticking around on a floor, trying to get up for a while, and then having the screen scroll upward just rubbed me the wrong way. After that happened several times, through multiple play sessions, I was done with the game.
Its cute graphics, fine sound effects, and innovative vertical scrolling design isn’t enough for me to like it in the long term. As such, Ice Climber has the dubious distinction of being the first Nintendo-developed game I’ve played that is getting a Negative rating.
Review Overview
Summary: Ice Climber was cute, and sometimes I had fun with it, but the jumping mechanics and the stage design drove me up a wall! I tried to like it, but found it extremely frustrating and tedious.
Title: Ice Climber (Price Charting)
Genre: Vertically-scrolling 2D Platformer
Year Released: 1985
Developer: Nintendo
Available On: NES, Famicom, GBA, and technically the N64 and Gamecube versions of Animal Crossing (details). The arcade version of VS Ice Climber is also available on Nintendo Switch 1 and 2.
Price Paid: $221 or $66.45 for the NES Classic Edition
Remember, we can have different opinions about the games we play. If you like something more (or less) than I do, both of our perspectives are valid. Please see my Review Rating Scale to know more of how I rate games.
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